Enhancing Communication Skills in Support Center Employees

I’m excited to share the final presentation fellow students Pooja Gupta, Marie Pennucci, and I created. Pooja provided the impetus for this project, as it is a real problem she encounters in her organization. I, with my linguistic background, served as subject matter expert. This project caused us to put quite a bit of thought into the A in ADDIE, analyzing learner skills and needs (the performance gap), as well as both D’s: designing a class that would benefit the learners most by offering practical skills, and developing some sample learning deliverables as part of the proposal.

In addition to the video, I pulled together a sample job aid support center employees can use to check their phrases and reflect on why certain phrases are recommended in a work context. By no means is this job aid comprehensive! In practice, such a job aid would include additional words and expressions. An audio or video portrayal of these phrase selections, which was beyond the scope of this class, would also be helpful so learners could hear the phrases as native speakers use them. But, using the job aid in a learning environment like a class or workshop, the learners and instructor can use it as a jumping-off point for discussion of what the learners usually say, what they could phrase better, and reflections on what they’ve heard other people say and why their word choices were acceptable.